ON VACATION

I'm on an extended blogging break. So much has been happening, but nothing has really worked out the way we planned...so, we were trying to buy a single-family house to live in while working on the 2 family house, but we were denied the mortgage. Now, we're focusing on grants and low-interest loans to fix up the 2 family house.

Anyway, since we're refocusing, we're going to go to Zaborski's Emporium this Saturday! In Kingston, NY. We'll be on the look out for bathroom fixtures and maybe some wrought-iron fences. If we don't find what we're looking for there, we might go to New York Old Iron, under the F train in Brooklyn. It's only open from 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, but it always looks packed with amazing stuff.

So, maybe there will be more updates after this weekend!

Our House circa 2008

This photo is from October 2008. Look how gorgeous our house was, and the street it's on, before the foreclosure! The house next door is not just a shell!

Two weekends ago, we cleaned up some garbage and the neighbors five houses down were generous enough to lend us their wheelbarrow and weed whacker (which we then broke...eek!). We cut the overgrown weeds out front and hauled 900 pounds of garbage to the dump.

There's still about a ton of garbage we have to dispose of that we stored in our carriage house. Maybe during the week when the dump is open past noon and we can make more than one trip.

Financial Update

We're back from Hawaii and ready to tackle the house! A few pieces of bad news.

First, we didn't get the Mount Saint Mary/St. Luke's Hospital Grant. After going through the trouble of taking the Pathstone first-time homebuyer's course and sending in the application last year, Pathstone dropped the ball and forgot about us. They were waiting for the grant to be available to non-employees of Mount Saint Mary and St. Luke's Hospital. When that happened at the end of the summer, they didn't tell us. I spoke with the community liason/grant administrator at Mount Saint Mary and she said she never received our application. Now that we've closed on the house, we're no longer eligible.

Second, it turns out that we have serious plumbing problems. The water main is cracked and we have to hire an excavator to repair it before we can run pipes into the house.

Third, the City of Newburgh cited us two violations which had existed for the two years that the house was on the market and owned by the bank, but they never cited the bank for it.

Fourth, in our first weekend back there was a pitbull chained to the house and a stolen ATV in our driveway. Oh, and a shrine to someone who died (was killed?) right next door.

A few good things have happened, too:

Our next door homeowner helped us when we had to build a fence between our two properties. He provided barrels of water for the cement.

A wonderful Newburghian and his partner donated solid Victorian doors to us from their collection.

Community members have been introducing themselves (many from NCAC) and offering help, services, and information.

We found the best BBQ place - Brothers BBQ in Greater Newburgh/ New Windsor. The chopped bbq and ribs were crazy good, as well as the collard greens.

Thanks everyone!

National Park Service Preservation Briefs

For anyone buying and restoring a historic building, I recommend visiting the National Park Service website. The Technical Preservation Briefs are excellent starting points for preservation work.

Oops, I lied! More registry items:

Nymphenburg Porcelain - more expensive than the chair.

Wedding Registry

This is the only item on the registry. I saw it in the Restoration Hardware catalogue and almost bought a plane ticket to the Philippines to sell my kidney.

Updated: Apartment Therapy has an article about the origin of this chair. Its original design was to protect porters from cold draughts as they sat in the hallway and kept watch over the front entrance of a home.

Last (?) piece of the wedding puzzle

We have a wedding officiant!!! Our dear friend Peter went ahead and became an ordained minister of The Universal Life Church Monastery and is applying for his license to perform marriages in the State of Hawaii!

If you want to be married in Hawaii, I now have a highly recommended minister. Who is a deep atheist possibilian.